MOON OVER MY HAMMIE

It always starts out the same – the feeling of dread that I am going to be getting on a plane and may not come back.

I used to love to fly, but September 11th changed all that. Now I wear a crucifix around my neck and say ten Hail Mary’s before I board. It has to be ten, I don’t know why. I also have a mantra during takeoff, asking the Lord to “..please wrap your loving arms around this plane and keep us safe.”

It’s not the threat of a terrorist attack that gives me pause. But that fateful day reminds us that we are not immortal, that we can perish at anytime.

I sit and look around at my fellow passengers, wondering who would be the hero in a crisis, who has children and who is sitting in the emergency exit seats.

My anxiety is heightened if the weather conditions are not perfect. Snowy or rainy takeoffs are nerve racking, wondering if we will take off or land without falling into the water or landing on a house. I’ve started googling questions like “…are safe landings due to the expertise of the pilot, possibilities of wind shears, and what to do in a downward spiral….”

I realize all these thoughts are negative. I try to work myself up in the other direction – the fact that I am able to take these trips at all, I have a book signing for this silly little book I’ve created, my loved ones are waiting for me to land, that there are pilots like Captain Sully out there and that if my number is up, there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.

I am in Florida visiting my sister and attending a book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Lakeland. My ten year old nephew (who is the same age of my two oldest grands) is excited saying to anyone who will listen that “Aunt Eileen the writer is here to visit, and I’m going to make Mom buy 10 copies of the books!” I hugged him and told him he could have his for free.

It’s nice to see my sister, who has raised a nice family down here in Orange juice country. I have an photograph tucked in a corner of an old desk, of her and our youngest sister. They are standing outside besides a big oak tree, hugging each other while bundled up in snow suits, their faces red from the cold. They are about 5 and 8 years old. She looks the same, tanned from the weather here, but basically the same. Its how I will always think of her in my mind, I suppose, and it still surprises me to remember she has a 23 year old son and a beautiful 16 year old daughter.

Catching up over dinner, we all laughed and talked about our families, Bingo Mary and our Dad, and how we were looking forward to seeing our Mommy (that’s what we still call her.) We were all such little hams back then, wanting the spotlight on each of us – not at all like the confident and self-assured children we have all raised.


Mother’s Day will be different this year – I’ll be on a plane coming home and will be met by my two youngest sons for dinner. I’m sure there will be phone messages left from the others. I take solace in that fact that I will make it home to see them all again. But the Hail Mary’s will begin again, just in case.

TIME TRAVELERS

It’s the last day of April and I have a great May coming up.

I'll be traveling to visit my sister in Lakeland, Florida and a book signing at Barnes & Noble thrown in for good measure surely means a full week. I’m really looking forward to both. A Writer's Conference in NYC at the end of May rounds out an interesting month.

Part of my promotion of the George & Bob Books is this self-directed mini tour across the country. Luckily, I also get to visit with my family and friends along the way.

These jaunts across the U.S. have to coincide with my evening adult education classes I am currently teaching. Every Monday afternoon until the end of May, I sit in a classroom with some pretty remarkable women who are writing their life stories.

Talk about drama, and I mean the good kind. The youngest is 79, the oldest 88.

These women come from all walks of life, different economic and social classes. Yet they all blend in well together; they are friends. They have known each other for at least 50 years.

They are teachers, business leaders, and one is from town royalty.

What is most interesting to me is they answer the question recently hidden in the back of my mind of late – what does it feel like to be old?

“I look in the mirror and every morning it is a shock to see my mother standing there.”

“I feel exactly like I did when I was 20. When am I supposed to ‘feel’ old?”

Sure, they admit to some aches and pains, but these women are a tremendous example of what it means to take care of ones self. They continue to get their hair done at the salon, they exercise, and have not smoked in eons.

One never married; only two still have their spouse by their side. They visit their siblings in Florida when the need arises, and smile knowingly when I tell them I am visiting mine this year. Their minds are sharp and they rib each other constantly, laughing and joking about fashion trends and changes, remembering when their children were in school together, marriages and deaths and everything in between.

Surviving the depressions, the wars and the 70’s, they are stronger now than they ever were. They are what I hope I am when I am their age.

The fact that we have been thrown together in this situation is not lost on me; I am more the student than the teacher at this class. I have never thought of myself as a teacher, except perhaps to my children and their friends.

Another gift from above; to be able to look into their eyes and have them tell me their stories.

The answer to my question is really quite simple. Never allow one self to see the end of the road. Just keep traveling it.

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Robert Frost -

The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.